There
are a number of ways to setup a vehicle to move around a map. All of them use
waypoints. Some of them use events to set up stop points and speed. Some use
area triggers to set off the event.
This
tutorial covers setting up a vehicle to follow waypoints on a non loopingwaypoint list, set of by Area triggers. We will only place a single
blue start marker for testing, you can add other markers later.
First of all, make sure you have downloaded and
installed the unlocked version of the med 2.05c, or use the Med from Terranova
EXP which is a 2.05b, but make a new shortcut, This will enable all the features
that where hidden by Novalogic.
There
are some faults with these Meds, but they will do until Nova releases a new
Version. The old H, and I unlocked meds, may crash in 3d mode on your system.
2.About the Author.
Howdy,
my nickname is Eagle Eye. I live in Adelaide, South Australia.
I
have been playing Delta force since DF1 first hit the shelves and progressed
through all the incarnations. A group of us, including Iceman, LAN game on a
regular basis, we both have a home LAN setup.
I
started mapping with DF3 Land Warrior.
I
now map mainly for DFX, and have been appointed as an Admin at DFBarracks.com, where I share my knowledge with the other members.
3.Opening the Editor.
Once
you have installed the new Med, make a shortcut somewhere on your desktop or
start menu. Click on the shortcut, and you will be presented with the screen
below
4. 4.
Setting up
your maps General Information.
a.
Under the pull down menu, go to Edit/General Information. You will be
presented with the screen below.
b.
Now you need to setup your mission name. This is the name that appears in the
game and may be different than the actual file name. It is always a good idea
to keep them the same to avoid confusion.
c.
Mission Designer is optional; I always put in my email address.
d.
Mission Terrain must be set, choose flat from the drop down menu.
e.
Map Types sets up the type of game, for the purpose of this tutorial, I’m
using Team Deathmatch (TDM).
When you are
finished, it should look something like the screenshot below. Minus my red
marks of course!
f.
Click OK to close the General Information Window.
5.Inserting
and Defining Items.
OK,
now it’s time to insert the items we will need to make the map work. We will
need:
a.A blue player
start marker
b.2 sets of
waypoints
c.A vehicle to
have move around the mission.
d.2 sets of area
triggers
e.2 buildings to
act as visual markers
Start by doing
a right mouse click, anywhere on the terrain area and you will see a pop up
menu.
Left click on
the insert Mode to enable it. You will see insert mode appear up in the top
right hand corner, also tick Collision Models on the left hand side under
Show:
Your
view should now look like the screenshot below.
Now we will
change to the Height map by clicking the H up the top left hand side. You
will see C H D buttons, it will be easier to see our items under this view.
Your view
should now look like the screenshot below.
OK, you are in the
insert mode, lets place our 2 buildings, click the left mouse button on
the map and the pop up window will appear to place an item.
Choose
buildings, and click on the first one in the list "2 Story Bombed Out
Building" and then OK, it will be placed where you had the
curser. See the below screenshot.
Place a second building. In about the same places as
in the screenshot below. Use the + key to zoom in. If you want to move the
building, click on in, right click and "Move" it to a new
location.
OK, lets place our startmarker, click the left mouse button
somewhere near the building on the lower right and the pop up window will appear to place an item.
Choose markers, and scroll down until you find “Team Blue
Start Marker” click on it and then OK, it will be placed where you had the
curser. See the below screenshot.
This is where I placed mine,
See Below. Use then zoom and ctrl+rightclick to centre the building, I have left room
to put an Area trigger in between the building and the start marker.
Now it's time to place the Area
Triggers.
First of all, we will give the
Area Triggers names (Define them). In the drop down menu, select Edit/Area
Triggers. This will bring up the Area Trigger Edit window as seen below.
Click number 1 on the left
side, then in the Description box click and type in Hummer Start, and color
orange, as seen above.
On the left side, click on
number 2, then n the Description box click and type in Hummer Stop, and
color Yellow, as seen below.
Ok, now we can place the Area
Triggers.
Click the left mouse button
somewhere near the building on the lower right and the pop up window will appear to place an item.
Choose
markers, and Choose the first marker in the list "Area Trigger",
click on it and then OK, it will be placed where you had the curser. See the
below screenshot.
Place
2 Area Triggers in the same places I have done, they appear yellow because I
selected them to make them easier to see, normally, they appear blue.
See the below screenshot.
Ok, now exit the insert mode
(Right Click, click Insert Mode). Select the 2 Area Triggers as seen above.
Now we are going to Define these 2 Area Triggers. Right click in the map
area and a window will pop up, select "Edit Item Attributes". See
Screenshot Below. And type in number1 where the red circle is.
Remember, we assigned number 1 to
"Hummer start" when we defined the area triggers above.
(Edit/Area Triggers). Press OK, and you should see something like
the screenshot below.
OK, we have
finished defining the first area trigger. Now we have to do it all over
again for the other one. Zoom out until you can see the other building,
now centre the map on that building (ctrl+rightclick on the
building), and zoom in to about the same as the above screenshot.
Place 2 area triggers
in the same places as the other building. Repeat the steps to Define the
area triggers, only this time, type in a 2 instead of a 1. When you
are finished the area trigger should be defined with a yellow border because
we chose that color when we defined area trigger 2.
OK, next we place the
vehicle, first, zoom in on the first area trigger, now enter the insert
mode (Right Click on the map, Click on Insert mode). Click in the middle
of the first Area Trigger and the insert window will appear. Select
Vehicles and scroll down to the Hummer with Armoured 50 cal. I choose
this one because you can ride in it, any other vehicle will do, just so
long as you can ride it. Now click OK. Exit the insert mode and
select the marker, rotate the vehicle 90 degrees to the right, that's
the direction we will set up the waypoints. See screen shot below.
After you have rotated the hummer, you
should have a med that looks something the screenshot below.
Now comes the hardest bit, placing the waypoints. As with the Area
Triggers, we need to define the Waypoint lists, giving them names and
colors. It's better do this before we place the waypoints. Exit the
insert mode. Select Edit/Waypoints from the drop down menu. Click on the
1 on the left hand side, then click in the Description box, type in
"Hummer Out", select Color orange and ensure that the Waypoint
does NOT loop is ticked. See screenshot below.
OK, now the other one, Click on the 2 on the left hand side, then click in the Description box, type in
"Hummer Back", select Color Yellow and ensure that the Waypoint
does NOT loop is ticked. I chose those names because they reflect
the action of the waypoint in reference to the player start, and the
colors because they show up well in these screenshots. See screenshot
below.
OK, lets place some Waypoints, we need 2
sets, I have planned 10 per set, the max you can have is 32 per set,
that would be numbered 0 to 31. We will place 1 set of 10, define them,
copy them, hide the original set, paste a new set, define them as
waypoint list 2, then rotate them, and move then to the correct place,
unhide the original set. We will end up with 2 sets of waypoints,
defined as Hummer Out, and Hummer back.
First, Zoom out on your map, so you can
see both buildings, try to have one in each corner. One top left and one
bottom right. Use the zoom keys "- and +" and the centre map
on mouse keys "Ctrl + right mouse". Put them in about the same
positions as the screenshot below. This will give us enough room to
place all the waypoint markers.
OK, enter the insert
mode, we will now place our 10 waypoints. Click on the terrain just to
the right the first Area. The Insert items window will pop up, go
to Markers and scroll down until you find Waypoint, select it, then hit
ok, this will place the first waypoint. See screenshot below.
Place ten Waypoints in
about the same places as I have done in the screenshot below, the last one,
right in the middle of the second Area Trigger.
Now we will assign the
waypoints to a list. We have already defined the names of the waypoints.
OK, exit the insert mode, select the 10 waypoints (Click on each one
until all ten are highlighted in yellow). The items window on the left
should show 10 items selected. . Right click anywhere on terrain and
select "Edit Item Attributes". Over on the top right hand side
of the window, under Waypoints/list, pull down the menu and select
Hummer Out. See below. Then OK.
You should now have
a linked set of waypoints like the screenshot below. The med will always
link the waypoints in the order that you place them.
Now, rather than just
place the next 10 waypoints, we will copy this the first set, paste them
and reassign them to waypoint list 2. Why? So you can learn how to copy,
hide, unhide, paste, rotate and reassign.
OK, click on
Unselect All at the top of the med, just to make sure we don't have any
unwanted items selected. Now Click on any one of the waypoints in the
waypoint list. Now right click and click on "Select This Waypoint
List". Now, right click again and click on "Copy". Now,
Right click again, and click on "Hide Selected". Now,
right Click again and Click on paste. You will now have all 10 waypoints
floating on your cursor. Place them anywhere near the original list. See
below, I placed mine here.
The 10 new waypoints are still selected.
Right click, and select "Item Attributes". Over
on the top right hand side of the window, under Waypoints/list, pull
down the menu and select Hummer Back. See below. Then OK. The
waypoints will now be linked in Yellow, which is the colour we assigned
when we defined waypoint list2.
Ok, next we rotate the
waypoint list. The 10 waypoints should still be highlighted. Right
click, and select "Group Rotate". See below.
Now use
the << < . > >> keys to rotate the group 180 degrees
Now right
click and select "Move", the group of waypoints will now be
floating. See below.
Move the
waypoint list, place the last waypoint directly in the middle of the
Hummer. See below.
OK, now right click, and
select "Unhide All", you now have 2 sets of waypoints, named
and ready to use. We don't have to insert any more items, next is how to
set up the events that will run the hummer.
OK, It will only take 2
events to run the Hummer. So here we go.
Go to the pull down
"Edit" menu, and let go on "Events" . First, name
the event, click on the first event (event0) then up in the name box,
type in Hummer Start.
Now Click on Hummer
Start, then over in the window on the right named "If
Triggers" double click on New Trigger. This will bring up a window,
see below, Under Trigger type, pull down and let go on SSN.
OK, now Trigger type,
pull down and let go on Area Trigger, see below.
OK, next, under trigger
variables /ssn pull down and find the hummer, in my case, it's ssn4, see
below
OK, next is Trigger
Variables/Area, pull down and let go on Hummer start (We set this up
earlier), see below.
OK, that's the
trigger, now we set up the Action. Before we go any further, lets setup
the timers, they are needed to reset the events so they repeat, they
also set up the amount of time the hummer pauses before resuming.
Tick the Reset After (Seconds) box, and put 90 in the box, and enter 30
in the delay) the 90 is the time before resting the event so it can be
triggered again, and the 30 is the amount of time to pause before
executing the action.
OK, now we set up the
Actions. We need to set up 3 Actions. First one, Double click on
"New Action" in the "Then (actions)" window. In the
Action Type, pull down and select Redirect SSN. Under Action
Variables/SSN pull down and select your hummer, SSN4 in my case,
then under waypoint list, pull down and select "Hummer Out".
and then Waypoint Number 0. then click on ok. See below.
OK, Second one, the
Combat speed. Combat speed needs to be set as well as the Patrol speed.
Why? If you shoot at the hummer, it will drive away at a higher speed,
this is the combat speed, so if you have a hummer driving around, and
you don't want it to zoom away when shot at, then you must set the
Combat Speed.
Double click on
"New Action" in the "Then (actions)" window. In the
Action Type, pull down and select "Change AI Single", Then
Action Subtype "Combat Speed", Under Action Variables/SSN,
select the Hummer, ssn4 in my case again, then Speed of 25. Then click
OK. See below.
OK, Third one, Patrol
Speed. Double click on "New Action" in the "Then
(actions)" window. In the Action Type, pull down and select
"Change AI Single", Then Action Subtype "Patrol
Speed", Under Action Variables/SSN, select the Hummer, ssn4 in my
case again. Then speed of 25. Then Click OK. See below.
OK, your events should
look something like the screenshot below.
OK, now we
need an event to return the Hummer back to the start point, we will copy
this event, then change the trigger to the other area. Press copy event.
Then, click on new event and Paste Event, see below.
We now have 2
events the same. Click on the second event. Then in the name box above,
call it Hummer start 2. Now we need to change the trigger from area 1 to
area 2. Double click on the trigger "SSN4 is within area 1"
and pull down the "Trigger variables/area" and select area 2.
We also need to change the waypoints, so double click on the
Action "Redirect SSN to waypoint 1-0" and change it to list 2,
(Humvee Back) using the pull down. Click OK. See below.
OK, your
done, save the mission, File, "save and export" . this will
save the mis and the bms. You can start the game and select your
"Test Mission", it should appear under "Team Death
Match". The hummer should drive away by itself after 30 seconds,
which is enough time for you to get on the hummer.
Any comments or questions, email
at the address above, or make a post at the DFB Forums.
You can Download this tutorial, along with the bms
and mid files from
HERE
Regards
Eagle Eye
Note:
This not the only way to set vehicles. It is not meant to be the
"Bible" and should not be taken as such. I take no responsibility for
errors or things just not working properly. Follow this tutorial at your own
risk.
